GREEN WOOD CEMETERY.
Brooklyn—Improvements—Ride—Approach to the Cemetery—Views—Beautiful scenes.
Seneca, July 29th.
In my last I conducted you on my journey as far as Brooklyn, N. Y. My temporary stay there was at South Brooklyn, a portion of that enterprising town which has been but recently built up. Scarcely any thing during my tour has more astonished me than the wonderful growth of this place. From a little rural village, it has grown up, in a few years, to a city, which, though it cannot pretend to rival the mighty metropolis that lies spread out in gigantic dimensions on the other side of the river, can still number its thirty or forty thousand inhabitants. One of the causes that have contributed to the rapid growth of this town, is its vicinity to New York. Gentlemen engaged in business in New York, find it pleasant and healthful to have their residences located upon the hills of Brooklyn, which look off upon the beautiful bay, and are daily fanned with fresh breezes from the ocean. While Brooklyn is thus increasing in population, I was happy to find that a corresponding increase was observable in its religious institutions and houses of public worship. The temporary edifice occupied by the congregation of Christ Church, of which our friend the Rev. K. G—— is rector, is soon to be abandoned, and a new and beautiful Gothic structure is to be erected for the occupancy of that congregation. I was greatly delighted with what I saw of this congregation. The labours of our brother seem to have been peculiarly blessed. He has gathered around him a most interesting people, and God has sent among them already multiplied tokens of his converting grace. Whereever the Gospel is faithfully, and earnestly preached, and its holy precepts illustrated in the daily walk and conversation of those who "bear the vessels of the Lord," religion will prosper, and the church become like the garden of the Lord.
But I commenced this letter with a view of giving you an account of another matter, referred to in my last—a visit to the Green Wood Cemetery.
The friend with whom I was staying, charged me not to think of leaving Brooklyn without paying a visit to this Cemetery. I had heard something of these picturesque grounds, but had formed no adequate conception of their beauty. Several racy and graphic notices, from time to time, have appeared in the New York papers, as I since learned, of this magnificent ground plot, where is to be constructed a vast subterranean city for the dead. None of these, however, had fallen under my eye, and I therefore did not go prepared to witness the magnificent scene of wild and sylvan beauty, that a ride over these grounds revealed to me. My visit to this spot almost instantly unfolded to me the origin and propriety of its name, Green Wood Cemetery—a large portion of the grounds being covered with green wood. The great interest of this spot arises from the natural beauty of the grounds in connection with the association of the purpose to which it has been devoted: for as yet not a grave has been dug here, nor a monument reared.
It was a bright sunny morning, while a bland balmy sea breeze refreshed the air, in which we started to visit the Green Wood Cemetery. We rode from South Brooklyn along on the margin of the bay, some two miles or more, till we had passed the little village of Gowanus, before we ascertained the exact locality of this future city of the dead. A short distance beyond the village just named, at a spot signalized in the Revolutionary war as the scene of a bloody engagement, we left the road, and entered a lane leading to the grounds of this Cemetery. This lane, from the gate onward, had all the appearance of wild and uncultivated rusticity, being shut in on either side with a sort of rude hedge, and shaded by forest trees and brushwood. For a while it conducted us through cultivated grounds, and we saw on each side of us, rich fields of grain, and corn growing in all the luxuriance of summer. Soon, however, this lane in its winding and upward course brought us into a scene perfectly sylvan, and woodland in its character. There was a stillness and seclusion around us that impressed us with the idea that we were in the depths of a vast forest,—such as we might expect to find a thousand miles from the great metropolis, whose steeples, and shipping, and scenes of vast activity were visible a few rods from the spot we now occupied. We had already entered upon the grounds of the Cemetery. They consist of about two hundred acres. I never before saw the same extent of territory combining such vast variety of scenery. There is here forest and field, hill and dale, streamlet and lake in such variety, and singular juxtaposition, that in following the circuitous avenue that conducts you over these grounds in a ride of four miles, one is impressed with the idea that he has been travelling over a very extended district of country. It was not only the grounds themselves, but the views we caught of distant objects, from different points of the winding avenue, that helped to give effect to this whole scene. As we proceeded, every turn of the carriage wheel, either brought to view some new developement of striking sylvan beauty, or opened upon us some new feature of loveliness, or grandeur in the surrounding prospect. At one point we were completely embosomed in trees, where all was stillness and deep repose as though we were shut up in some remote dell, amid the lofty and rugged Alleghanies. Then again we emerged into smiling plains, and sunny fields, and smooth lawns of deepest green. Again our path conducted us into a dense forest, and we directly found ourselves upon the wooded brow of a steep declivity, sweeping off down to the margin of a little silent lake, whose dark shaded waters gave back with more than pictorial beauty, every tree and limb, and leaf whose shadow fell upon their surface: and then soon we again emerged from this forest scene, and found grassy fields, and an extended open country lie stretching around us. The winding avenue which we traced, every few rods brought us to a point of observation, where the surrounding scenery, made up of bays and islands, rivers and mountains, cities and villages, farms and country houses, and forests, put on a new phase, and, like the turn of a kaleidoscope, presented a new and still more beautiful picture to the eye.
The highest elevation of land in these grounds, is near their centre, and is said to be the highest point of land upon Long Island,—it manifestly is the highest point in this part of the Island. It is called Mount Washington, from a determination already formed on the part of the proprietors of this ground, to erect upon its summit a lofty and magnificent monument to the Father of his country. From this elevated point, a panoramic view of surpassing beauty, in almost illimitable perspective, opens upon the eye. In one direction you see the blue waves of the outstretched ocean, upon which are visible all along the margin of the horizon, the whitened canvass of a hundred receding or approaching vessels; while in the intervening space, are seen the plains of Flatland and Flatbush, covered with grain, and verdure, and orchards, and forests, villages, hamlets, and farm-houses. Turning directly around, the whole bay of New York, with its beauteous islands, and the two magnificent rivers, whose mingled waters form the bay, together with the great metropolis itself, burst upon the view. Or to trace the prospect more leisurely:—at one point, you see in the distance, Sandy Hook, and the Lighthouse; and a little further to the right, Staten Island, the Lazaretto, Brighton, and the Jersey shore: still farther to the right appears Jersey City,—the waters of the broad Hudson, and along its banks, the palisades, and, still higher up, the highlands fading away in the dim distance. At a point in the landscape much nearer us rises to view the city of New York with its canopy of perpetual haze,—its hundred spires, and encircling forests of masts, while in still closer vicinage we can trace the East River, with all its busy show of commerce, and see Brooklyn sitting like a bridal queen upon this shore of the island.
We have often followed the remains of some friend, or parishioner, to the picturesque grounds of our own Laurel Hill—we have traced each winding walk among the groves and tombs of Mount Vernon, and gazed upon the various monuments, the sculptured tombs, the dark shrubbery, and encircling scenery of Pere la Chaise; but we have no where seen such combined beauties, and natural advantages for a rural cemetery, as in the grounds which we have here attempted to describe. And what will these grounds be some hundred years hence, when art shall have reared up in every vale, around the margin of every lake, and upon every hill-side a thousand marble monuments, and when a larger population shall be ensepulchred here, than the living mass of beings that now inhabit New York and Brooklyn? What multitudes and myriads will those two cities within the next hundred years send to be entombed here! How will the population of this subterranean city go on increasing, till all these acres are covered over with piles of human dust! And what a scene will be exhibited here, when the last trumpet sounds! What myriads will start up here at that call! "For all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth!" And how solemn the truth which the Saviour subjoins,—"they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation!"
I have lingered so long about the grounds of Green Wood Cemetery, that I can tell you nothing in my present letter about our excursion to Rhode Island.